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Ukraine's president missing as protesters take control of palace

An opposition protester holds a picture of newly freed Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko as she delivers a speech during a rally at Independence Square in Kiev. (AFP | PIERO QUARANTA)

Newly freed Ukrainian opposition icon and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko (L), with her daughter Yevgenia at her side, speaks during a rally on Kiev's Independance square on February 22, 2014, after her release. (AFP | LOUISA GOULIAMAKI)

KIEV, Ukraine — In a stunning reversal of fortune, Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko left imprisonment Saturday and spoke to a massive, adoring crowd, while her arch-foe President Viktor Yanukovych decamped to eastern Ukraine and vowed he would remain in power.

Protesters took control of the presidential administration building, and thousands of curious and contemptuous Ukrainians roamed the open grounds of the lavish compound outside Kiev where Yanukovych was thought to live.

Parliament, which he controlled as recently as a day earlier but is now emboldened against him, on Saturday called for his removal and for elections May 25. But Yanukovych said now he regards the parliament as illegitimate and he won't respect its decisions.

The political crisis in the nation of 46 million, strategically important for Europe, Russia and the United States, has changed with blinding speed repeatedly in the past week. First there were signs that tensions were easing, followed by horrifying violence and then a deal signed under Western pressure that aimed to resolve the conflict but left the unity of the country in question.

Tymoshenko, whose diadem of blond peasant braids and stirring rhetoric attracted world attention in the 2004 Orange Revolution, was both sad and excited as she spoke to a crowd of about 50,000 on Kiev's Independence Square, where a sprawling protest tent camp was set up in December. Sitting in a wheelchair because of a back problem aggravated during imprisonment, her voice cracked and her face was careworn.

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But her words were vivid, praising the protesters who were killed last week in clashes with police that included sniper fire and entreating the living to keep the camp going.

"You are heroes, you are the best thing in Ukraine!" she said of the victims. The Health Ministry on Saturday said the death toll in clashes between protesters and police that included sniper attacks had reached 82.

She urged the demonstrators not to yield their encampment in the square, known in Ukrainian as the Maidan.

"In no case do you have the right to leave the Maidan until you have concluded everything that you planned to do," she said.

The crowd was thrilled.

"We missed Yulia and her fire so much," said demonstrator Yuliya Sulchanik. Minutes after her release, Tymoshenko said she plans to run for president, and Sulchanik said, "Yulia will be the next president — she deserves it."

Under the agreement signed Friday, Yanukovych faces early elections, but it is unclear when they will happen.

His authority in Kiev appeared to be eroding by the hour.

Yanukovych spoke on television in Kharkiv, the heartland of his base of support and the same city where Tymoshenko was imprisoned. He likened his opponents to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and accused them of a putsch.

"Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and banditry and a coup d'etat," he said. "I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed."

Ukraine is deeply divided between eastern regions that are largely pro-Russian and western areas that widely detest Yanukovych and long for closer ties with the European Union.

Yanukovych's shelving of an agreement with the EU in November set off the wave of protests, but they quickly expanded their grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych's resignation.

The conviction of Tymoshenko was one of the underlying issues driving the protests.

After the 2004 Orange Revolution helped bring Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency, Tymoshenko became prime minister. But when Yanukovych won the 2010 election, Tymoshenko was arrested and put on trial for abuse of office, an action widely seen as political revenge.

Top EU foreign envoy Catherine Ashton welcomed the release of Tymoshenko as "an important step forward." Russia came out Saturday firmly against the peace deal, saying the opposition isn't holding up its end of the agreement, which calls for protesters to surrender arms and abandon their tent camps.

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